Multi-year deal will have the actor serve as Lincoln Motor Co.'s 'storyteller'

The star of “The Lincoln Lawyer” has signed a multi-year deal with Ford Motor Co.’s luxury brand to serve as its spokesman in a series of commercials that “Drive”-director Nicolas Winding Refn will helm.

The campaign starts this week and will put a spotlight on Lincoln’s MKC SUV with spots that will air on broadcast television and digital platforms.

The McConaughey ads mark Lincoln’s most high-profile effort to showcase its redesigned vehicles since Ford started to reinvent the brand in 2012.

Lincoln essentially cast McConaughey to play himself and casually talk about the brand and its cars and trucks through unscripted conversations. It’s an interesting strategy that feels more genuine than most car commercials and turns McConaughey into a storyteller and capitalizes on his affable, easy going persona.

The campaign’s launch is timed with this weekend’s Emmys broadcast. McConaughey will arrive to the show in an MKC, Lincoln’s first foray into the smaller luxury SUV segment, dominated by the likes of Audi, BMW, Lexus and Mercedes-Benz.

In the first spot, McConaughey speaks of his love for long two-day drives in Texas in his down-to-earth manner that’s made him seem so approachable and appealing to audiences over the years.

“Lincoln’s a classic, iconic American brand that’s now making the transformation into the luxury market, and after driving the MKC I think they’re doing a good job of that,” he says in the ad.

The unscripted nature of the ads helped Lincoln land the actor. Besides the timing of the Emmys, the Lincoln campaign will also put him in front of consumers as he starts to promote Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar,” in theaters Nov. 7.

“Authenticity is a word that kept coming up in our initial meetings,” said McConaughey, who in 2011’s “The Lincoln Lawyer,” played a criminal defense attorney who operates out of the backseat of his Lincoln Town Car.

“It was clear from the start they appreciated me as an individual first and foremost, and I would be able to be myself in this collaboration,” he added. “The campaign’s not screaming for attention.”

When it comes to branded entertainment, Lincoln has mostly produced a series of shorts with independent filmmakers, and an interactive music video with Aloe Blacc and Interscope Records.

“Matthew is a natural fit with Lincoln and where we are going as a brand,” said Matt VanDyke, director, global Lincoln. “The transformation of Lincoln is well underway. With the MKC coming to market in a hot, competitive segment, now is the perfect opportunity to share to a wider audience what our brand offers. Matthew is the ideal personality to help us tell this story, and it is only the beginning of what we trust will be a fantastic relationship.”

McConaughey driving a car only brings to mind Wooderson in Melba Toast, reeking of weed, Foghat playing and a collection of teenage girl’s undies on the floor in the back seat. Did Ford really think this through?